WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

“Newton opened the book of nature and found that it urns written in the languge of mathematics”—A.J. Ayre (1985)     

WHAT ARE THE CONTENTS OF EXPERIENCES?

I address three interrelated issues concerning the contents of experiences. First, I address the preliminary issue of what it means to say that experiences have contents. Then I address the issue of why we should believe that experiences have contents. Finally, I address the issue of what the contents of experiences are.     

JUST WHAT ARE SEX AND GENDER, ANYWAY?

Abstract— The terms sex and gender have come to be used as synonyms in the social sciences literature. However, nothing has been gained by the use of the term gender except confusion. This article identifies five meanings for which social scientists often use the terms sex or gender and proposes a distinct term for each of those five meanings. The terms proposed are (1) sex: to refer to the biological function; (2) biologically sex-linked: to refer to traits or conditions that are causally biologically related to being male or female; (3) gender-linked: to refer to traits or conditions that are causally linked with maleness or femaleness but are culturally based as opposed to biologically based; (4) sex- and gender-linked: to refer to traits or conditions that are causally related to both a biological component and a cultural component; and (5) sex-correlated: to refer to traits or conditions that are related to being male or female without asserting a causal relation to either biology or culture (because we do not wish to make such an assertion or cannot do so confidently). It is hoped that adopting a terminological standard will reduce the confusion resulting from nonspecific language use.     

WHAT ARE DESIRES GOOD FOR? TOWARDS A COHERENT ENDORSEMENT THEORY

Desire‐based theories of well‐being are often said to accept (G), x is good for a person just in case he wants it, and (B), x is better for a person than y just in case he prefers x to y. I shall argue that (G) and (B) are inconsistent, and this inconsistency resists any plausible refinement of these principles. The inconsistency is brought out by cases in which our wants and preferences for certain life‐options are contingent on which life‐option we realize. My argument can be generalized to endorsement theories that define a person’s good as the right combination of some kind of objective desirability and subjective endorsement, and allow preferences to be tie‐breakers when the compared objects are equally desirable (or incommensurable). My conclusions will not just be negative. I shall argue that if the choice is between (G) and (B), the most attractive option is to keep (G), slightly refined, and drop (B). 1     

IS SOCIAL VALIDITY WHAT WE ARE INTERESTED IN? ARGUMENT FOR A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

It is argued that neither the term social nor the term validity is best to identify the processes used or the results obtained in questioning consumers about the goals set, procedures employed, or outcomes achieved in habilitative programming. The term consumer satisfaction acknowledges the fact that it is essentially a collection of consumer opinions. The underlying intent of the process might be called habilitative validation, a name that seems to better guide our validation efforts. More important, in carefully considering consumer satisfaction assessment, it becomes clear that not only does consumer satisfaction itself need to be validated, but also that more objective methods can be used for assessing habilitative validity. However, legitimate uses still remain for consumer satisfaction measurement, as long as we do not mistake it for strong evidence of the habilitative validity of our goals, procedures, or outcomes.     

WHO/WHAT IS/ARE THE CHURCH (ES)?

This paper explores the essays of two prominent ecclesiologists, Joseph Komonchak and Hans Urs Von Balthasar, on their respective fundamental definitions of the Church. Gleaning insights from their different perspectives, the paper applies aspects of Lonergan's philosophy in order to clarify some methodological presuppositions and some ecclesial distortions to be corrected in light of those presuppositions. Additionally, it addresses two fundamental issues for consideration in a post‐conciliar theology of the Church.     

EFFECTS OF SELF-EFFICACY and GOAL-ORIENTATION TRAINING ON NEGOTIATION SKILL MAINTENANCE: WHAT ARE THE MECHANISMS?

In a replication and extension of Gist, Stevens, and Bavetta (1991), we examined the effects of self-efficacy and a performance- versus a mastery-oriented post-training session on trainees' negotiation skill maintenance. Sixty MBA students received salary-negotiation training and engaged in practice negotiations with a confederate. They then attended either a performance- or a mastery-oriented post-training session. A second practice negotiation was conducted 7 weeks later. Results indicated that mastery-oriented trainees engaged in more interim skill-maintenance activities, planned to exert more effort, and showed more positive affect than did performance-oriented trainees. In addition, self-efficacy interacted with the post-training condition on Time 2 performance: Low self-efficacy trainees performed more poorly than high self-efficacy trainees in the performance- but not in the mastery-oriented post-training condition. Analyses indicated that trainees' cognitive withdrawal mediated this effect. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

WHAT IS PHYSICALISM?

Although 'most contemporary analytic philosophers [endorse] a physicalist picture of the world' (A. Newen; V. Hoffmann; M. Esfeld, 'Preface to Mental Causation, Externalism and Self-Knowledge', Erkenntnis , 67 (2007), p. 147), it is unclear what exactly the physicalist thesis states. The response that physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical does not solve the problem but is a precise statement of the problem because 'the claim is hopelessly vague' (G. Hellman; F. Thompson, 'Physicalism: Ontology, Determination, and Reduction', Journal of Philosophy , 72 (1975), p. 552). I argue that physicalism in fact should be the thesis that every existing particular essentially exemplifies properties the exemplification of which does not conceptually entail the existence of conscious beings. Physicalism thus is a purely philosophical thesis with no intrinsic relation to physics. ¹     

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR NEIGHBOURS ARE DOING ? A STUDY OF SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION IN EUROPE1

After this year's research on scientific communication in Europe, where almost 100 interviews were conducted in 8 European countries, one finding is clear: there is better communication between Europe and America than among European countries. Since space is limited, the analysis of this finding will be made in terms of the communication behavior of the members of the cross-national organization, the European Association of Experimental Social Psychologists. Their behavior indicates communication within a specialty, and in part, a representative case for the overall findings of the research. The Association is a limited membership organization with members in 14 countries. Since its initiation in 1963, the group has increased not only in size but in its cross-national representation. The questionnaire-interview data obtained at the Association's most recent meeting, supplemented by the findings from the general interview sample, provides the basis for the following discussion.     

‘THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS’: WHAT CRISIS ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

In this paper the author argues that the so-called crisis in psychoanalysis, often blamed on various external factors, is in fact an internal crisis brought about by intrinsic incongruities between the explicit intention of its educational model, which aspires to educate and train in a professional and scientific discipline, and its organisational structure, locally and internationally inextricable. Its isolated basic units of ecumenical control—its traditional 'societies/institutes of psychoanalysis'—implicitly and explicitly co-impose the monastic transmission of a preponderantly doctrinaire education and clinical practice. The dysfunctional elongation of our historical organisational syncretism continues to force us, one century later, to amalgamate in and superimpose on an endogamous supraordaining system (i.e. our International Psychoanalytic Association) prerogatives and functions so contradictory that they are ordinarily considered irreconcilable, such as: education and scientific research (tasks of universities); societal and political (tasks of an ordinary society of professionals and technicians); and 'as if' certification and accreditation (tasks of external, local, interinstitutional collegiate bodies and independent, multirepresentative, national coalitions and consortia, as well as of local governmental legislation). The pervasive collective regressive phenomena derived from this homogamous and secluding organisational and educational syncretism has had a retardatory impact along all the hierarchy of our institutional activities. The future of psychoanalysis as a science and a clinical discipline must be nothing other than one of evolution and transformation. The survival of its legendary psychoanalytic institutes and societies, as well as its local and international organisation, with its inherited but now untenable syncretism, is that which is being questioned (that is, psychoanalysis as a 'movement' and a 'cause').     

WHAT IS A FEMINIST?

This article outlines the evaluation and stereotype of feminists, based on responses to closed-ended semantic differential traits as well as openended, projective responses to a hypothetical male or female feminist. Consistent across both methodologies, undergraduate respondents (Study 1: N = 210; Study 2: N = 135) viewed feminists as politically liberal, assertive/career oriented, and more likely to be heterosexual than lesbian. Most evaluations were neutral to slightly positive, with a few negative areas. However, feminists were seen in less positive terms than the typical woman and were described as much more assertive and politically liberal. Gender, race, birth cohort, gender of target, and feminist-attitude differences are presented. Despite the neutral to slightly positive evaluation, most respondents did not personally identify as feminists, possibly because they misperceive others' attitudes toward feminists as more negative than they actually are.